


Hey There, Dakota

by SerArthurHeath



Series: Choices: Consequences [1]
Category: With Every Heartbeat (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Dead People, F/F, Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Loss, POV First Person, POV Second Person, Post-Canon, Romance, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29158227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerArthurHeath/pseuds/SerArthurHeath
Summary: Spoilers for With Every Heartbeat...........School Senior Dakota passed away, her bone marrow transplant rejected and slowly her love, Luna, moved on with her life, never forgetting Dakota but finding meaning and love the way she wanted her to. Dakota's spirit is always watching over her, though, and so someone is listening when Luna comes with bittersweet news...This is part of my series of Choices Short One-Shots called Consequences for a little closure on finished books with no follow up planned. There will be more for several books.
Relationships: Dakota Winchester/Main Character (With Every Heartbeat)
Series: Choices: Consequences [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2140395
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4





	Hey There, Dakota

**Author's Note:**

> This is the weirdest Fic I've ever written: narrated by a ghost (ish) speaking to the second person, you the reader, as her living love, the main character of With Every Heartbeat. It's a weird style, it was hard to write but I felt, after that crushing ending, that I simply had to write it. Some people will hate it but I hope some enjoy it and cry and get catharsis the way I did writing it and reading the original visual novel! I'm no Homer or Jemisen so I've no idea if I can pull Second Person off. As it's a dead consciousnesses speaking, it's also quite stream of consciousness, which could backfire... Anyway, it's an experiment and I had to get the feelings I was feeling off my chest!
> 
> This is post the canon ending (all these works in this series will be) and it uses my MC's name, sorry. Dakota is female, as I always pick female LIs. It does link to other Choices stories. I might add more one day but I'm not sure. 
> 
> The other fics in the series will be more orthodox!

"Um, hey there Dakota" You always start these conversations the same way. It melts my heart. "My love. Still my love, despite what I'm scared and excited to tell you. Nobody understands that - everyone kind of gets the grief and the crying, but only Allie can really get her head around how I can love her without loving you any less. And I don't. I…" sobs begin to rough up your beautiful voice, and I want to reach out (I can emotionally, and if I really push physically too, but that could be a little traumatic even for someone as brave as you, Luna), to touch you and hold you and tell you it's all ok. I know what you are about to say: really, Luna, as if I didn't watch you every single day. I know you said yes, I witnessed it and I cheered. I know you still love me and miss me and always will: like Allie, who has learnt when to leave you alone in your grief and pretend to sleep on and when to hug you and hold you tight and say it's ok, she's here, I've caught you crying in the middle of the night, the darkness and silence making it impossible not to remember. 

For the dead, consciousnesses or ghosts or whatever we are, sharing love without diminishing it is natural, though I like to think with you I'd manage not to get jealous even if it were hard.

I'm constantly amazed at how you manage it everyday. And blown away by the tenderness you speak with whenever you come to my grave, as if you know I can hear you. You trusted me when I said I'd always be there and watching over you. It says so much about you as a person, and I wish I could do more to let you know that than my current role of soothing you with my mind when you are down.

"Any way… I'm sorry, I know you wouldn't want me to cry..." No, Teach, I don't want you to have to cry. Crying itself is worthy and nobody should ever try to take that from you. I remember watching with pain and guilt as you cried so many times in those first few weeks and months. The first days, after you and my parents and friends all wept together in each other's arms as I passed, you didn't. You were so numb, frozen by the enormity of everything you felt - I know, I always know how you feel, like our souls are connected at an intrinsic level - and that scared me, despite my faith in you, that you might not get through it. Seeing you cry, let your friends back in, see you punch the imaginary face of Leukemia superposed on a bag in Lennox's gym in impotent rage at losing me (as if you could ever lose me, my love), this relieved me. Your pain was always there, and it hurts me to know that because of me it will always be a part of you, one you will never allow yourself to give up no matter how great life goes otherwise, but whilst you were trapping it away it was so much more corrosive.

Cry. Cry my love. You've earned the right. Life is unfair, but you have done everything in your power, at every turn, with every choice, to fight injustice and to make it a fairer place.

I love you so much. I tell this to you know, silently, but I know you hear me inside. You find the strength to move on and continue your revelation. You always tell me every big thing that happens in your life, as well as the visits you have made every single year for the last 10 on my birthday, on our anniversary and on the day I passed on (but you did not lose me. I'm yours forever, Teach). Allie knows, of course. It makes me so, so happy that you found someone like her, who loves you, who deserves the vastness of your love and who, though it wouldn't matter to me, honestly, if she didn't, understands that she shares (not splits) that love with a 19-year old dead girl you only knew for a school year but knew better than any person on the entire planet could. She doesn't have an ounce of jealousy in her, and I love her for the way she lets you know that. I was there when she told you "Why would I think you loving Dakota meant you loved me any less? A mother doesn't lose love for one child when she happily bears another, does she? Love is not finite." Teach, Luna, my darling, you have my blessing. You've always had it.

It took you 5 years to really put yourself out there again, though I know you kissed a few girls and had a few "dates" before that. I know how hard I made it to move on: sorry for so being that damn lovable, Teach! I was rooting for you and Allie from the day you met. I squealed with ethereal glee when you asked her out - I expected her to ask you, but you were so brave you managed to overcome all the guilt you felt, the betrayal of me that you knew wasn't real but your injured heart still railed against, to get in first. I feel like I know her like a sister now, I've seen so much of her. We've never met but I know we are friends. I hope I get to meet her. Not soon of course. I love her because I know you do too. She is part of my world now.

"She asked me to marry her! And I said yes. I really think I can have an amazing life with her, and I know you always said you wanted me to try to enjoy life to its fullest…"

I did, and I meant it, every time. You've done so well, Teach, at managing that. You are an inspiration: everyone should know how smart, and kind and selfless you've been. You've been there for my parents, who are still struggling to get past this. I watch them every day too, and try to comfort as best as I can in their minds, but they have some really rough days. Even worse than yours and we both know how low you can get even with everyone around you. You went to California, alone, facing memories and loneliness that would have crushed so many. You kept acting and doing art for my memory's sake but then majored in biochemistry and got your Masters in Molecular Sciences and when you became a researcher, when I saw you charge forth in your promise to kick leukemia's ass, even though you felt you'd lost me (you could never lose me), I howled with pride. Cancer is still a bitch, Teach, just like I told you, but if anyone on this damn planet can beat this bitch it's you. It's already cut your time short with me and your pa, but I know you will never give up.

Your work for the hospital, for charity, for my family and your own: you are amazing, babe. I even teared up a little in my phantom eyes when you donated bone marrow last year. I will always be in awe of you, just as I was when I realised, despite how scared you were and how much it hurt, you  **fucking** carried me through that second illness. Len thought you'd give up when you realised just how hard it would be. I'll never forget the respect on her face when she realised you were in it with me to the end, that nothing could ever scare you off or make it not worth it to you. When you shaved my hair, when I was miserable and at my most vulnerable as I relived hell in my mind, when you smiled and looked at me as if I were still beautiful and then cut your own hair off for me, I knew  **anything** was worth it to have been with you. Len cried the next day when she saw because she realised how amazing you were. Never seen it before. She'd die for you now. 

You made the last few months of my life not only worth living despite the pain and the stress and the realisation it was all going to end. You made them the best days of my life. That will remain with me forever and ever.

We always wondered what happened after you die. I remember that first proper date, in the observatory, talking about the stars. How we are all Stardust, fragments from the creation of the Universe itself, and every atom of us lives on after we go, becoming countless other things, a reincarnation of the body. You said you had no idea what happened after we die, and we talked about the idea that the stars were our loved ones, my biological mother and your father, watching us from above. We weren't far from the answer, my love. I have no idea what happens next, when I decide to let this consciousness go (it takes a constant effort of will to stick around, and a reason - that's you), but right now I am everywhere, my mind spread across the world far more diffusely than my matter, but focussed on where the things that matter to me are. I can manifest, but it's hard and the other souls, beings, whatever, that I've briefly interacted with here say it's dangerous. After all that fascination with ghosts and ghost stories, after that film we made, and I'm basically a ghost. Cool when you think about it. 

I watch you and smile and wish you onwards, and I watch mum and dad, and Lennox and Mateo and a few other friends. It's hardly active but it's better than sticking around in a hospital bed all day. It's not hell, unlike that ICU. Maybe hell comes next, or limbo or heaven, or maybe oblivion like I used to think, but I'm not sure anymore - I've already lived a bit after death so it feels presumptuous to assume life after death stops. Maybe my soul, if that's a thing, or mind or whatever I am - as my brain rots in the ground with all the chemical storage in it, and my spark of life flickered into the universe following thermodynamics - will get reborn or maybe like my body the reincarnation is more recycling, a little bit of me going everywhere. I kind of like that, but I like the idea of an eternity with you too, if the afterlife is real. And Allie: you lose your ego with your body, and I've no jealousy about sharing my eternity with you. 

You come to the crux of what worries you. "I feel so happy to think about a married life with her, and kids, and a future. Then I feel sad because I still wish I could have had that with you too, then guilty because what does that mean about my life with Allie, you know?" I do, I do know, Teach. But, Luna, you had that choice taken from you. Don't begrudge the opportunity that my loss has provided. We will get our happily ever after, and as long as you are happy I, truly, am too. 

"And I feel scared that I'll lose her too. But I still think it's what's right for me. And I'll always visit you here. Allie wants to visit next time, so she can say hello. She loves you too, because of what you mean to me. And I want your parents to come to the wedding."

They will. You are family in their eyes, as if we married. And maybe we did: we only dated for months but my soul feels welded to yours, in a good way, and we know each other completely.

Either way you see my parents every few months, and your mum looks after them too. One thing that I feel glad about regarding my illness is that it's brought you together, and helped you with your mum too. And Lennox and Mateo, it made you friends with them for life. They visit too, and they cope in their own ways. Lennox represented the US in the last Paralympics, but you know that, you screamed her on across the TV and I smiled and laughed. Mateo just finished his Residency, under Dr Lahela. You and him, fixing people and beating cancer a day at a time, him life by life, you step by step towards a weapon of mass destruction to wipe it off the map. If my death inspired you both to do so much good (but I know you would have done so much good even without me), again I think it a bargain. 

I tell you I love you, again, and you relax. I know a part of you can hear me or feel me. You never need to apologise to me for living your life. I remember how guilty you were when you had sex with someone else for the first time. It was so adorable, but I was thrilled for you, plus that girl was hot! I mean, I felt like a voyeur, weirdly aroused at a purely emotional level with no body to get physically involved, sharing the feel of your excitement as she undressed you. Actually watching was even weirder, but you had a great time and that made me feel more satisfied than a hundred orgasms could. I wouldn't say no to a second time, another memory of sharing my body with you after our sole experience of sex together, Teach, but I cherish that moment nonetheless and have cheered you on so vigorously with your few girlfriends that you would turn beetroot purple if my voice had a presence! I know you still feel a bit bad every time you sleep with Allie, but you shouldn't. At least you feel  **really** good afterward, and I get to bask in that. I'm no expert, but that woman seems to know what she's doing. 

You round things off now, telling me other bits of news, about old school friends, your mum, Nolan's latest film, everything you think I'd like. I like anything you think I'd like, to be honest. I just love the sound of your voice. 

I'm still a 19 year old girl, but I'm also a 29 year old woman now, if that makes sense, and an immortal ghost thing, and a 9 year old with cancer and everything else I've ever been all at once. But with you, I'm mostly 19 and yours, and you are mostly 19 too, though it's more complex than that. When you pass away, hopefully after a long and happy life, we'll be 19, and 90, and eternal together. Then we can wait for Allie if you like (I'd like that) and all go into the beyond, the unknown, metaphorical hand in metaphorical hand. I don't know what comes next, but if it's with you I face it, I'm not afraid. Just like I wasn't afraid of the first end, either, with you by my side.

You finish up, and kiss my headstone. I kiss you back and you shiver with uncanny pleasure. The flowers you've left, as always, are gorgeous, just like you my love. You say goodbye, tears in your eyes and I wipe them away with spectral fingers that don't remove the moisture, just the bittersweet sadness. 

Go home to your new fiancée, Luna, my love, Teach. I've got your back. And I'll see you on the other side.

  
  
  



End file.
